Rangers and Artemi Panarin on Different Wave Lengths in Terms of Contract
Vince Mercogliano of The Athletic joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick and was asked in regards to the contract situation involving Artemi Panarin with the Latest York Rangers.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Scott Laughlin: Vince Mercogliano talking Rangers with us here on the NHL Morning Skate. So that you mentioned Panarin and the way much he still drives offense up front. It looks as if currently individuals are talking more about his haircut than they’re a few contract extension. What are you hearing on that, Vince, as regards to Panarin? Now, he’s 34. My guess can be that because he’s 34, there could also be a difference of opinion when it comes to what the term goes to appear to be on this contract. Do you see this getting done in some unspecified time in the future?
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Vince Mercogliano: Yeah, definitely term, I believe, goes to be a difficulty here, from what I’ve heard. And I actually asked Panarin, myself, actually, to be frank with you, we were talking the day that he shaved his head. I sat down with him for a little bit of an interview after practice that day, and that’s when he was in that slump. And I used to be type of asking him what was happening. And unprompted, he brought up, there’s lots of stuff happening.
The negativity starts to seep in after I’m not scoring. And he brought up, it’s a contract yr, and it’s hard for me to type of block that out of my mind. In order that prompted me to then respond by asking, Well, where do things stand with the contract negotiations at once?
What he told me is that it’s mainly pretty quiet. Now, could which have modified within the last couple weeks? It’s possible, but I actually haven’t heard anything on the contrary. And my understanding, so far as the Rangers pondering on this, is that they really aren’t in any rush to leap into any latest cope with Panarin at this point.
If you mentioned the age, I believe they very much need to see how this season plays out, how productive he’s, but additionally they are taking a look at a situation that’s pretty unique in comparison with where they’ve been in recent off seasons. Where prior to now, within the recent past, they’ve normally gone into the summer pretty tight on salary cap space.
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Where this coming summer, they’re taking a look at over $30 million in available cap space. So I believe that they’re looking forward to having that type of flexibility, they usually don’t want to simply tie up a bunch of that cash this early in the method. They need to wait to see how the market materializes.
Now, the downside for them, or the negative thing for them at once, is that lots of the massive names, the star-level players, (Connor) McDavid, (Kirill) Kaprizov, (Jack) Eichel, whoever you wish to say that they were hoping might make it to free agency next summer, lots of those guys are getting locked up at once, so the free agent market is looking thinner and thinner, really, by the week, it looks like recently.
In order that’s not thing for the Rangers, because they’re going to have all this cover space. But what are they going to spend it on is the query if starting the texture, to me more like (Chris) Drury, goes to must get creative in some way, that may mean a trade. Who knows what might be on the market by the point we get to the summer?
But again, I believe they need to wait and let things materialize, determine exactly what may be available to them, and that’s why they don’t need to jump into any extensions with Panarin at once because they may need to allocate that cash elsewhere. I believe very much at once they need to keep their options open.
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And while it sounds to me like Panarin would love to remain, I also think that he’s not of the mind at once to be giving an enormous discount, or actually not taking fewer years than he would love to take. And so I also think that there’s an impasse so far as that, because if the Rangers do anything with him at this early juncture, I believe it’s very much going to must be on their terms, which implies probably not so a few years and a lower AAV, actually than what he’s at at once, at $11.6 million per season.
So I just feel like at once the 2 sides are seeing things very in a different way, and the Rangers are content to type of wait and see how things play out.
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